BRUSSELS – Finland and Sweden will shortly join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) shortly. They have already fulfilled all of Ankara’s demands, even as their accession protocols have not been ratified by Hungary and Turkey yet.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made this announcement in a press conference on Wednesday following the meeting of NATO defense ministers.
“Both Sweden and Finland have now fulfilled their obligations in the Joint Trilateral Memorandum they signed with Turkey in July (during the NATO summit in Madrid in 2022 – TASS). So I urged Turkey to ratify both Finland and Sweden together already last fall,” he said.
“That is my position. That’s what has not changed,” he said adding that Sweden and Finland would become NATO members soon.
“Twenty-eight allies have already ratified both protocols. Only Turkey and Hungary have not. And it is for Turkey to decide whether they ratify both, and I recommended that, or whether they ratify one of the two documents,” Stoltenberg said.
“I will also actually travel to Turkey tomorrow, and that will be one of the issues I’ll certainly address,” he added. (Anadolu)